Project Zomboid Server Hoster Sites

[Connall]

So while renting a VPS is still a completely legitimate thing that you can do and so is hosting on your local computer, a couple of people don't want to go through the technicalities of setting up a VPS, or don't want to have a server running off a poxy personal computer. That's cool, this is the thread for you. The aim is to gather feedback from users of these hosts and show some reviews, ranking of them in one consolidated thread.
 
The info here is not necessary to know, however if you wish to post a hoster or something along those lines you will want to read it.
 
Each hoster will have their own section where we will give links, link or quote to user reviews in this thread or even link the threads hosters make themselves or link to replies hosters make in this thread. We will add hosts to the list as long as someone can post a link to their page and the hosts support Project Zomboid. I must ask that you DO NOT POST REFERRAL LINKS
 
I obviously can not verify these hosts so you must use them at your own risk. Should you encounter a problem with a hoster regarding legitimacy feel free to send me a PM and once I check the complaint they may be removed from the list if necessary. I am not someone to voice your customer service grievance with. If however a host receives a lot of negative attention, I will remove them from the list.
 
I will also be skeptical with reviews. If the user who posts the review is brand new, I'll be less inclined in linking it in the main post. Enough talk, here is the list. Remember tell me of any others you might know of.
 
 

 
Website
 
Country: Sweden(?) (Servers hosted in a few locations in the US and EU.)
Cost: Each slot costs €0,99.
 
 
 

 
Website
 
Country: France(?) (Servers hosted in Canada/France)
Cost: 8 slots cost €7,99
 
Will add more when more come to my attention.
 

 
Website

Country: US (Servers hosted in US and Europe) English/German support staff.
Cost: €.97/month per slot. Accepts GBP and USD
 
 
 

 
Website

Country: Servers in multiple locations (such as US and Netherlands)
Cost: Depending on ammount of RAM, no slot restrictions. 20 USD/month for a server with 1.5 GB RAM.




Website

Country: Europe, Canada and USA
Cost: $7.42 | £4.99 | €6.84 per GB RAM (ranging from 1.5 to 8.5 GB RAM)




Thread

Website

Country: Germany (Servers hosted in multiple locations)

Cost: Servers start at €4,00 come with so many different options, slots appear to go up to 200.

[Chaz]

I have experienced some trouble with Nitrado's customer support, with them taking over 24 hours to respond to my support requests and not answering my questions fully. As a German company, they said they had trouble understanding my language.

No problems whatsoever with the hosting, the website and control panel are both quite user-friendly.

[Rekxar]

Hey,

 

Just made an account to post my current experience with the hosting services.

I started by using Nitrado a couple days ago and everything installed smoothly and started great. Played for a day on it with some other people and had a constant decent ping of about 85ms but after encountering many zombies and opening much of the map, there was some noticeable stutter going on. Not too game breaking, but unpleasant none-the-less.

 

I decided I would edit some server settings to customize the welcoming message and some of the other settings. I also tried to figure out a way how to use the console through their webapp panel. As of yet I am to find out how, and it's been over 12 hours of searching and trying out things. Once I restarted the server, it messed up the serversettings.ini file and from then on it all went downhill. It's been those 12 hours that my server says it is online but no one can connect to it because it acts like it doesnt exist. Nitrado's webapp shows me a completely different file structure than what i see through filezilla and I can't even ping the IP which they provided, although it blatantly says it is the one the server is active and hosted on.

 

I've also sent 2 support tickets, 12 hours ago, and as of yet to get a reply. This is considering the game server is down and nobody from my clan can get access to it. I would personally think some emergency issues like this should warrant a faster reply.

 

 

I've just now made a new server with Fragnet and hoping to copy over my map save there and see if it all works fine.

[pamdun]

Killservers is now offering Dedicated Project Zombie Servers.  We sell servers with unlimited slots, you just pay for the amount of RAM you want on your servers and then you can control the number of users that you feel your server can best accommodate.

 

Servers are automatically set up in most cases and you do not have to wait for tech support to create your server.  You configure the server according to your own wish and start playing.  

 

We offer free mumble servers with each account (that does not impact the RAM you have for your game server) if you would like a voice server for your game.

[Gman]

Nothing Oceanic yet.

[James2406]

Looking for a complete walk through on setting up severs, LowPing looks the best for me, but I'm completely lost on what/how to do this. Tired of surviving alone

[Connall]

Looking for a complete walk through on setting up severs, LowPing looks the best for me, but I'm completely lost on what/how to do this. Tired of surviving alone

 

Buy a server, then just give a read over of some of the pinned threads in this section: http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/forum/72-help/

 

They should be able to bring you up to speed (The Linux setup guide won't apply to you since I'm assuming you'll be buying a ready to play server.)

[Korba]

I know what it says about new users in the OP, I'm not a new user but for some reason the account I have from 2012 doesn't exist anymore (what's that about? Had the same username as this one, I still have the original email from lemmy101-at-gmailcom if that can be used in anyway to validate I'm not a fake account, just a silent observer most of the time).

 

I've recently rented a server from Nitrado. As a german speaker I can attest to the fact it's not just english support tickets that have a 24hour or so response time; I've only had the server since Saturday night around 8pm CET and already had to send off 2 support tickets, one of which I'm still waiting to hear back on.

 

First Issue: The "instant" installation isn't really instant. The server reported it was online and PZ was running around 15 minutes after it was rented, but no one could connect. I dispatched a support ticket, then around an hour and a half later the server spontaneously reported it was running an installation (meaning it was actually still installing). It wasn't for another 2 hours until it was complete. It effectively took almost 4 hours before the first of us could connect. I dispatched a support ticket when no one could connect (before it stated it was installing). No one replied to the support ticket until Saturday evening around 24 hours after I first submitted it with a generic "It seems the issue has been resolved." type message.

 

Second Issue: Saturday afternoon some of us tried to connect with the username/passwords we had saved from the previous night and were all given the message "Invalid Username/Password" by PZ (this is also the case with the "admin" account); even the server logs show that the username/passwords were being rejected. This one was very strange, we're not sure if it's a PZ issue or a server issue, either way I submitted a support ticket with details of the problem. I got no response until sunday evening, around 24 hours after i submitted the ticket with roughly the same message as the previous support ticket; they said the issue seems to have resolved itself as they were able to connect with a new user (but the problem quite clearly wasn't with new users, only existing ones; who wants to create a new user everytime they want to play?). I'm still waiting to hear back about this as I informed them the issue was still there, no response yet.

 

Aside from these issues, server performance isn't great. When we first connected we each had pings of 4000ms (multinational group from various places in the EU). The ping issues corrected themselves after a reconnect and they sit fairly decently low at 40ms on average for me personally but the cells load very slowly, you hit a cell boundary and have to wait for it to load before you can continue running, and the zombies don't load into until you're half way through the cell (and suddenly surrounded by zombies); this is with only a couple of people online and moving together. Finally, the server is meant to be public, but it isn't listed in the public servers listing in game; since all I've done is check the Public Server box on Nitrado's webinterface (and there's nothing else in their webap to make the server public) I can only assume it's another issue on their end.

 

All in all, I'm not particularly happy with Nitrado, and I'm unlikely to continue paying for the server beyond this month I've already paid for.

[nasKo]

I know what it says about new users in the OP, I'm not a new user but for some reason the account I have from 2012 doesn't exist anymore (what's that about? Had the same username as this one, I still have the original email from lemmy101-at-gmailcom if that can be used in anyway to validate I'm not a fake account, just a silent observer most of the time).

This is a new forum under theindiestone.com/forums

The old one was theindiestone.com/community. When switching forum software we couldn't transfer the database.

[nasKo]

Added Citadel Servers to the list. Check out their thread for a limited offer:

http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/13712-citadel-servers-project-zomboid-dedicated-server-hosting/

[Sassa87]

https://www.gameservers.com/ hosts Project Zomboid as well.

[saving samson]

Hello everyone,

 

Im really after a but of server hosting advise, I have got a clue who to pick or what I should be on the look out for when choosing a host I have had a look at frganet, citadel and various others mentioned in this thread and even found this website that has helped me a little with reviews from customers http://comparegamehosting.com/game/project-zomboid/ however I'm really after some community players advise. Has anyone used any of the server hosts listed on any of the sites?

 

What should I be looking out for? I don't want to spend loads but I get that you do need to spend a little extra for a decent server experience. That's about where my knowledge ends.

 

should I but per slot or ram?

 

Thanks in advance any help would be a great help.

[EnigmaGrey]

One GB is far too little RAM.

[saving samson]

How much would you suggest?

[EnigmaGrey]

How much would you suggest?

A minimum of 2GB for 4-5 people.

[saving samson]

wow seriously? Im going to have to rethink my options now. So im thinking up to  4GB for up to 10 players?

[EnigmaGrey]

wow seriously? Im going to have to rethink my options now. So im thinking up to  4GB for up to 10 players?

To be safe. It's the same dilemma with MineCraft servers. Java is a hungry beast.

 

Multiplay now offers hosting in Australia and is by the slot rather than GB: http://www.multiplaygameservers.com/game-servers/pjz-projectzomboid/

[saving samson]

Ahh ok i understand. Ok, well thanks for the heads up. 

[Pingperfect]

 

Pingperfect are now thrilled to be able to offer Project Zomboid servers. After meeting some of the team in Birmingham and liking what we saw, we worked with the devs to come up with a rock solid profile for our servers.

 

All our servers are sold by GB of ram rather than slots so you know exactly what resources you are getting and are hosted on the latest Xeon processors backed with multiple redundancy strategies.

 

Servers can be ordered from here and start at as little as £4.05

 

Our servers are located in 

UK: London

Europe: France

Europe: Germany

Europe: Sweden

USA: New York

USA: Atlanta

USA: Chicago

USA: St Louis

USA: Texas

USA: Los Angeles

USA: Seattle

Canada: Montreal

Australia: Sydney

[EUDOXIO]

You can add Vilayer.com to the list, i have been with them for a couple of months, and i think they are a great host for Project Zomboid

[Dr_Medic]

You can add Vilayer.com to the list, i have been with them for a couple of months, and i think they are a great host for Project Zomboid

How much ram do they give you with their game servers

[Saucyharlot]

So I have quite a bit to say on two separate hosts.  Since becoming addicted to this game recently, I found that my home server just wasn't cutting it because we have recently moved to a rural area and the interwebs here are less than stellar.  I didn't want my clan being cast into ping oblivion and so I decided to go the route of renting a server.  The two I have used thus far and are complete failures are Multiplay and Gameservers.com.  I will post my review below on each, and then YOU can decide if you think it is worth the headache.  As of right now I have already queued for a refund from Multiplay and it seems that is going to be the same with gameservers.com if they do not respond by 10pm tonight.  Enjoy the reviews below (Be Warned, these are FULL reviews):

 

Multiplay Game Servers

 

I will start off by saying that everyone I actually dealt with at Multiplay support was friendly, but that is about all I can say for the support.

I purchased my Project Zomboid server on a Wednesday night, I chose Multiplay due to reviews, the amenities listed on their site and the cost. Immediately I logged into Clanforge and was given the error that the server capacity was full for my area and I would have to wait for my server to be added. This went against the boast of having instant set up on their website. As I am in tech support myself, I know that things can happen and while disappointed I just waited patiently for the server to be set up. I received an email a few hours later stating that my server had been setup and I could now log in to make changes. I began setting up the world for my friends and I to play in. I configured the .ini files and the .lua files that control things in the world to the settings I wanted and saved/reset my server. Everything in the Control Panel seemed easy enough to use and was a breeze to navigate. Once I got everything configured I started the server and handed out the IP address and port to all my friends. We went to log on but it gave us all the error that the server was not responding. I racked my brain trying to get it to work and ended up deleting the profiles I had made with the config files, stopping, starting, restarting, and I unfortunately did not find a way to Reset the server with a full wipe. This is when I submitted my first help ticket.

I was answered back in a kind manner, even if it took over 12 hours for a response, and I was informed everything was up and running and fixed. Once more I attempted to log onto my server and I received the same message, Server Not Responding. So I answered the ticket back and informed them it was not fixed. After another long wait of over 12 hours I was told that my ticket would need to be escalated and that it would be handled by a different tier of support agents. I also need to mention that I ordered the server on Wednesday night and it is now Friday that it is being escalated . . . in the afternoon. I decided to be patient again and waited all day Saturday before getting on to look at the ticket system. At this point I noticed that it was stated the escalation staff only works Monday-Friday 9am-6pm. So basically if you have a really serious problem . . . like the server you purchased doesn’t work . . . you will get no help on the weekends at all. This was a bit backwards to me and my frustration began to build. I was now four days into my purchase, still unable to get onto my server, still unable to use the product I purchased.

Sunday passed and into Monday we went until late Monday afternoon I received another message stating that the server was fixed and I should be able to play now. I was really excited and logged onto the server with the initial basic set up for the .ini/.lua files. I was able to log in as were my friends. Unfortunately since we hadn’t configured the server at all at this point there were literally zombies everywhere in hoards of 8-10. After peeing ourselves and logging out, I went in and configured the server to how my group would like it to be. I saved the changes, restarted the server and we logged back in . . . but nothing had changed. So I went back to the forums and help sections (which have very little on Project Zomboid in the way of help), and found a forum post where someone mentioned you have to Hard reset the whole world, which is something you as an admin cannot do. You have to submit another ticket and ask for them to do so.

This was a bit aggravating since I was supposed to have full admin control, but once more I tried to be tolerant and wait to see what happened. About six hours passes this time and I get a response that my server has been hard reset (full wipe), so I log in and it has not. The items I dropped on the floor of our safehouse are still there, going outside there are still dead zombies we killed when we first logged in to prevent being eaten. At this point I have waited from Wednesday to Monday and at every step my attempts to play on the server I purchased have been filled with glitches, misconfigurations, script failures, and capacity issues (all excuses I was given during my ticket process). So I responded once more and expressed that the server was -not- wiped and to please wipe it. Once more there was about a 12 hour delay in ticket response, so far the fastest time was six hours to reply, the longest being over the weekend, so I was not hopeful in getting a reply quickly. This agent stated he wiped it and after logging in I found he did, but before I logged in, I reconfigured the .ini files again and the .lua file so the world would take the changes. While the wipe was successful, the changes were not. I could not make the configuration files work at all.

At this point I was beyond frustrated, because it is now Tuesday . . . one day short of a full week after purchasing the server, and I still was not able to play the game in the capacity promised (full admin privileges, server being up instantly, server even working at all for half the week, etc.). So I responded back once more and addressed the issue, I asked if I was even able to change the configuration files, or if it was like the hard wipe and I had to have them do it for me. The answer given back was basically they typically don’t do configuration, but since I was having such a hard time they could do it for me. Prior to purchasing this server I ran a private server from my home computer. I had configured everything myself and I had no issues. I have recently moved to a rural area and the internet service here is severely lacking, hence my move to paying for a server. I knew my configuration files were done correctly, and after researching more on the forums I found I wasn’t the only one who was having this issue. Pretty much every Zomboid Server post was about either not being able to configure something properly, or not having full admin control.

At this point I had enough and asked for my refund, which is still being processed. I was informed it can take from 7 to 21 days to process my refund . . . 21 days . . . . I was blown away. I was also informed if I replied to the ticket anymore that I would lose my place in queue and I would have to wait another 7 to 21 days. I have yet to get a refund, and if I do I will post again stating how long that took to happen. Having worked for server hosts myself and major game labels, I have to say that I was disappointed at EVERY step in this process. The ONLY good thing I can say about Multiplay is that the Clanforge control panel was easy to navigate . . . if it nothing worked but starting and stopping my server. The Customer Support reps were always polite, but apparently not up to snuff when it came to actually fixing anything the first time around or responding to serious issues in a timely manner. 

If I were to rate the service level via review I would give 2 on quality and that is because of how polite they were, but that would be the only reason they would receive a 2. I would give the Website a 3 because while it is easy to navigate and use, it boasted claims that were false and misleading. Price was very reasonable, which is why I chose Multiplay in the first place, but if you can't play on the server you bought . . . what is the point really. I could not rate the ping, or actual game play because I could never play in any real capacity. I will never use Multiplay again after experiencing such horrific lack of support and being unable to use the product I purchased after a week of waiting for fixes. I suggest not using them for Project Zomboid, I have yet to use them for any other game . . . and as stated above I will not.

 

Gameservers.com

 

After the debacle with Multiplay, I was a bit raw with my frustration and determination to find a better server.  I delved deeper into reviews, rather than just taking the first face value ones I could find.  I found them as number one on a review site with 93 out of 100 based on reviews from other users.  None however were Project Zomboid reviews, but none the less I read enough reviews to be satisfied with the cost, the amenities and the reviews.  I purchased my server on a Tuesday and the instant setup seemed to be what it was advertised.  This excited me.  I was not going to make the same mistakes with this server and I wanted to configure all the .ini/.lua files prior to logging into the server for the first time.  This one did have an option for doing a hard reset (wipe) of the world, so that also made me quite happy.  

 

Unfortunately when I went to configure the files, only the Serverconfig.ini file was available to configure.  As they have an FTP, I figured maybe they only had the one file under their configure section, but you could manually go in to the FTP and change things.  So I went on a search.  I navigated to the Zomboid/Server/ folder where the serverconfig.ini was located and the other three should be located and found only the one.  Unable to completely configure the server I decided to submit a support ticket to see if the files were located somewhere else on their FTP or if I could just manually upload them already configured to the server.  I was happy that I waited less than 30 minutes for an answer and they asked if I could submit the two configuration files so they could look at them and they would get back to me.  I responded four minutes after they did and uploaded both files.  

 

After six hours of waiting for a reply I was a bit frustrated and decided I could at least get into the game and see if the .ini I could configure was reflected in the world (after the Multiplay experience I wanted to test this).  I followed their instructions on the properties to change in steam and then attempted to log on as the admin with the password they provided me.  Instant error of Connection Failed.  To be on the safe side I removed the protocols they asked me to put into steam and attempted with just a regular attempt and it came up as Server Not Responding.  Now I was a bit grumpy.  Not only could I not fully admin my server, I hadn't received a reply in over six hours at this point, but also the server wasn't actually working at all.  

 

So I updated my ticket and let them know I was unable to even log into my server and again continued waiting.  While I was waiting (since I am in tech support myself) I decided I would try a few more things to see if I could get it working on my end.  I stopped and restarted my server, changed the .ini file back to its original, I had other people attempt to access the server in case it was just my computer, I then attempted to do a hard reset of the server and found that the Reinstall Server button doesn't even work.  You can press it all you want and nothing will happen.  Frustrated and running out of patience I decided to set up the free clan website listed as one of the amenities with my purchase.  

 

I followed the help instructions on how to add it to my account, went to the last part of adding it and the button on that page to finalize it did not work either.  At this point it had been about 16 hours after submitting my original ticket and I had finished with being tolerant.  I updated my ticket with everything that I found didn't work and also informed them that since they have only a 5 day refund policy that I expected some sort of response before the next business day ended.  I work nights so after I got up at 2pm CST I logged on to see if anyone had replied . . . nothing.  I looked for other ways of contacting the support staff and found the options for Forum and IRC chat.  I tried IRC since it would be real time support.  I logged in, entered the room to see about ten support staff in the room and asked for help.  No response from anyone for over and hour.  I sat in the room and waited quietly, hoping someone would see and respond, but nothing.  

 

At this point I decided to go to the forums and posted everything that had happened.  I instantly got four views but even as of right now, no replies.  While I was waiting on any sort of response from anything, I got a ding in the IRC and was asked for my help ticket number.  I replied with it back and then nothing . . . .  Two other gentlemen came into the chat and asked questions and they were helped immediately with being told they would be sent private messages by a different agent.  Slowly losing patience I sent a private message to the agent who had spoken to me.  He stated that someone would be getting to my ticket shortly and that I should wait for my ticket to be answered in the ticket window.  So I closed out of IRC and now it has been over 24 hours with no replies from the forum or ticket.  They are on a time limit before I submit a ticket for a refund, because I will not wait for days until their 5 day refund policy runs out and I can't get my money back for a product that doesn't work.  

 

I have to say that this is literally the worst customer service I have ever received from anywhere in my life.  That is not an exaggeration.  Even if they were working on the issue, they should have responded with something to let me know they are trying to fix it.  Something.  Right now their rating is zero on everything.  They have not done anything to resolve my issues or put my time, money, or feelings into consideration.  I will make sure everyone I know in the gaming communities I play in understands how they treat their customers.  

 

 

Currently I am looking for a new host, as I doubt they will fix or reply anything before the 10pm deadline (it is already 8pm) and hope that the next people actually know what they are doing.

[Noober84555]

Is there any good server hosting that is GOOD enough for 10-12 players because i don't want to use all my ram because of me hosting a server...

 

 I dont need any cheap but something between $25 or higher is good and it would be better if it was private server so only my friends could join...

 

Just asking because i dont wanna end up with shitty customer service.. 

Edited November 3, 2016 by Noober84555

[EnigmaGrey]

Multiplay.co.uk is really only good for the default experience, though it does have a few mod options. Anything past that and it gets weird -- for example, if an option isn't available in clanforge but can be changed via the game or FTP, those changes will be reverted on restart. I assume GameServers are as limited.

 

(I actually experienced the same issue with Multiplay, Saucy -- bought a test server through them only to find out it wasn't available . . . and had to do the whole support ticket dance . . . ultimately cumulating in a refund that took a few days to process. A dedicated server host in Australia went a similar way -- sold hardware they didn't  have available. Sigh.)

 

I'd recommend a SoYouStart (OVH's budget line -- the same host Redboid and Spiffospace Russia runs on) instance running Windows and do the server hosting yourself. If you're proficient in Linux it's much cheaper.  Digital Ocean is also a good choice if you're into Linux.  You pay quite a bit more than Multiplay.co.uk or GameServers.com for full control of a server, unfortunately. Sadly, these companies seem cheap for a reason . . . but my experience with game hosts is limited to PZ.

 

Even an Amazon instance might work out, but PZ really needs about  300 MB per player (to be safe). I'd say a minimum of 3 GB is necessary ( 1GB for the OS, 2 for the server).